Timely Comics is the 1940s comic-bookpublishing company that would evolve into first Atlas Comics, and then Marvel Comics. During this era, called the Golden Age of comic books, "Timely" was the umbrella name for the comics division of pulp magazine publisher Martin Goodman, whose business strategy involved having a multitude of corporate entities (including Red Circle Comics) all producing the same product. The company was founded in 1939 as Timely Publications, Per statement of ownership, dated Oct. 2, 1939, published in Marvel Mystery Comics #4 (Feb. 1940), p. 40; reprinted in Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age Marvel Comics Volume 1 (Marvel Comics, 2004), p. 239 based at his existing company in the McGraw-Hill Building at 330 West 42nd Street in New York City. It later moved to the 14th floor of the Empire State Building.

Also included were Al Anders' Western hero the Masked Raider; the jungle lord Ka-Zar the Great,Unrelated to the Marvel Comics jungle lord Ka-Zar introduced in The X-Men (March 1965) with Ben Thompson adapting the story "King of Fang and Claw" by Bob Byrd in Goodman's eponymous pulp magazine Ka-Zar #1; the non-continuing-character story "Jungle Terror," featuring an adventurer named Ken Masters, written by the quirkily named Tohm DixonMarvel Masterworks, Ibid., as given in the contents page and as signed on the first page of the story, reprinted on pp. 46-51; "Now I'll Tell One", five single-panel, black-and-white gag cartoons by Fred Schwab, on the inside front cover; and a two-page prose story by Ray Gill, "Burning Rubber", about auto racing. A painted cover by veteran science-fiction pulp artist Frank R. Paul featured the Human Torch, looking much different than in the interior story.

That initial comic, cover-dated October 1939, quickly sold out 80,000 copies, prompting Goodman to produce a second printing, cover-dated November 1939. The latter is identical except for a black bar over the October date in the inside-front-cover indicia, and the November date added at the end. That sold approximately 800,000 copies. Per researcher Keif Fromm, Alter Ego #49, p. 4 (caption) With a hit on his hands, Goodman began assembling an in-house staff, hiring Funnies, Inc. writer-artist Joe Simon as editor. Simon brought along his collaborator, artist Jack Kirby, followed by artist Syd Shores.

Golden Age of Comic Books

Marvel Comics was rechristened Marvel Mystery Comics with issue #2 (Dec. 1939) — the magazine would continue under that title through #92 (June 1949) before becoming Marvel Tales through #159 (Aug. 1957) — and Timely began publishing additional series, beginning with Daring Mystery Comics #1 (Jan. 1940), Mystic Comics #1 (March 1940), Red Raven Comics #1 (Aug. 1940), The Human Torch #2 (premiering Fall 1940 with no cover date and having taken over the numbering from the unsuccessful Red Raven), and Captain America Comics #1 (March 1941). Going on sale in December 1940, a year before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and already showing Cap socking Hitler in the jaw, that first issue sold nearly one million copies.

Just as Captain America had his teenage sidekick Bucky and DC Comics' Batman had Robin, the Human Torch acquired a young mutant partner, Toro, in the first issue of the Torch's own magazine. The Young Allies — one of several "kid gangs" popular in comics at the time — debuted under the rubric the Sentinels of Liberty in a text story in Captain America Comics #4 (June 1941) before making it to the comics pages themselves the following issue, and then eventually into their own title.

Seeing a natural "fire and water" theme, Timely was responsible for comic books' first major crossover, with a two-issue battle between the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner that spanned Marvel Mystery Comics #8-9 — telling the story, Rashomon-style but years before Rashomon, from the two characters' different perspectives.

After the Simon & Kirby team moved to DC late 1941, having produced Captain America Comics through issue #10 (Jan. 1942), Al Avison and Syd Shores became regular pencilers of the celebrated title, with one generally inking over the other. Stan Lee (né Stanley Lieber), a cousin of Goodman's by marriage who had been serving as an assistant since 1939, at age 16 1/2 Lee's account of how he began working for Marvel's predecessor, Timely, has varied. He has said in lectures and elsewhere that he simply answered a newspaper ad seeking a publishing assistant, not knowing it involved comics, let alone his cousin Jean's husband, Martin Goodman:

"I applied for a job in a publishing company ... I didn't even know they published comics. I was fresh out of high school, and I wanted to get into the publishing business, if I could. There was an ad in the paper that said, "Assistant Wanted in a Publishing House." When I found out that they wanted me to assist in comics, I figured, 'Well, I'll stay here for a little while and get some experience, and then I'll get out into the real world.' ... I just wanted to know, 'What do you do in a publishing company?' How do you write? ... How do you publish? I was an assistant. There were two people there named Joe Simon and Jack Kirby – Joe was sort-of the editor/artist/writer, and Jack was the artist/writer. Joe was the senior member. They were turning out most of the artwork. Then there was the publisher, Martin Goodman... And that was about the only staff that I was involved with. After a while, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby left. I was about 17 years old [sic], and Martin Goodman said to me, 'Do you think you can hold down the job of editor until I can find a real person?' When you're 17, what do you know? I said, 'Sure! I can do it!' I think he forgot about me, because I stayed there ever since". IGN FilmForce (June 26, 2000): Stan Lee interview part 1 of 5

However, in his 2002 autobiography, Excelsior! The Amazing Life of Stan Lee (cited under References, below), he says:

"My uncle, Robbie Solomon, told me they might be able to use someone at a publishing company where he worked. The idea of being involved in publishing definitely appealed to me. ... So I contacted the man Robbie said did the hiring, Joe Simon, and applied for a job. He took me on and I began working as a gofer for eight dollars a week...."

Joe Simon, in his 1990 autobiography The Comic Book Makers (cited under References, below), gives the account slightly differently:

"One day [Goodman's relative known as] Uncle Robbie came to work with a lanky 17-year-old in tow. 'This is Stanley Lieber, Martin's wife's cousin,' Uncle Robbie said. 'Martin wants you to keep him busy.'"
In an appendix, however, Simon appears to reconcile the two accounts. He relates a 1989 conversation with Lee:
Lee: I've been saying this [classified-ad] story for years, but apparently it isn't so. And I can't remember because I['ve] said it so long now that I believe it."
...
Simon: "Your Uncle Robbie brought you into the office one day and he said, 'This is Martin Goodman's wife's nephew.' [sic] ... You were seventeen years old."

Features from this department include "Dinky" and "Frenchy Rabbit" in Terrytoons Comics; "Floop and Skilly Boo" in Comedy Comics; "Posty the Pelican Postman" in Krazy Komics and other titles; "Krazy Krow" in that character's eponymous comic; "Tubby an' Tack", in various comics; and the most popular of these features, Jaffee's "Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal" and Hart's "Super Rabbit", the cover stars of many different titles.

In slightly more grownup fare, Timely in 1944 and 1945 initiated a sitcomy selection of titles aimed at female readers: Millie the Model, Tessie the Typist and Nellie the Nurse. Timely also published one of humorcartoonistBasil Wolverton's best-known features, Powerhouse Pepper. The first issue, cover-dated January 1943, bore no number, and protagonist Pepper looked different from his more familiar visualization (when the series returned for four issues, May-Nov. 1948) as the bullet-headed bozo in the striped turtleneck sweater.

Time after Timely

Future Comic Book Hall of Fame artist Gene Colan, a Marvel mainstay from 1946 on, recalled that, "The atmosphere at Timely was very good, very funny. ... [I worked in] a big art room and there were about 20 artists in there, all stacked up. Syd was in the last row on my side, and there was another row on the other side. Dan DeCarlo was there, several other people — Vince Alascia was an inker; Rudy LaPick sat right behind me," with Mike Sekowsky "in another room".Gene Colan interview, Alter Ego # 52 (March 2006), pp. 66-67

Yet after the wartime boom years — when superheroes had been new and inspirational, and comics provided cheap entertainment for millions of children, soldiers and others — the post-war era found superheroes falling out of fashion. Television and mass market paperback books now also competed for readers and leisure time. Goodman began turning to a wider variety of genres than ever, emphasizing horror, westerns, teen humor, crime and war comics, and introducing female heroes to try to attract girls and young women to read comics.

In 1946, for instance, the superhero title All Select Comics was changed to Blonde Phantom Comics, and now starred a masked secretary who fought crime in an evening gown. That same year, Kid Komics eliminated its stars and became Kid Movie Comics. All Winners Comics became All Teen Comics in January 1947. Timely eliminated virtually all its staff positions in 1948.

The precise end-point of the Golden Age of comics is vague, but for Timely, at least, it appears to have ended with the cancellation of Captain America Comics at issue #75 (Feb. 1950) — by which time the series had already been Captain America's Weird Tales for two issues, with the finale featuring merely anthological horror/suspense tales and no superheroes. The company's flagship title, Marvel Mystery Comics, starring the Human Torch, had already ended its run (with #92, June 1949), as had Sub-Mariner Comics (with #32, the same month). Goodman began using the globe logo of Atlas, the newsstand-distribution company he owned, on comics cover-dated Nov. 1951.